Today is a day in Osaka. We started on the earlier side so we could ride the Shinkansen bullet train. We figured the short stretch between Kyoto and Osaka would take about 13 minutes - just enough time to take some photos but not too expensive either, about $13. It was fun and inexpensive bullet train experience.
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| Shinkansen train |
Once in Osaka, we went camera shopping for mom at Yodabashi Department store. I have never seen anything like it! A huge building, it must have been 12 stories tall and a block long and wide, absolutely huge! We stopped at the camera level to look, then headed on our way. The next stop was Doguya-suji Arcade, a street dedicated to cooking and eating hardware. I scored a pieced-together sushi set for $16! I also found a nice kitchen knife for Mat. It was an awesome strip- I could have spent a lot of time and money in that area. After shopping the arcade, we found some lunch. Shane took me to a little hole-in-the-wall eatery with the best potstickers I have ever tasted!! I ate nine of them they were so good. Mom and Kim went to a little Indian restaurant. After eating we shopped the stores of Den Den Town, the electronics district. I scored an 8gig photo card for about $20, a class 6 Four gig micro SD card for $10, and a 16 gig thumbstick for $30! Mom got a really nice cannon camera for $400 and two 8 gig photo cards for $20 each! Then Shane and Kim perused the game shops for video games.
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| Den Den Town |
After finishing up in Den Den Town, we headed over to Osaka-jo, the Osaka castle. It was after 5 PM so everything was closed but walking around the grounds was fantastic; such beautiful little park. We meandered our way up to the main castle building. There are lots of cats in the park, one could publish a book about the cats of Osaka-jo. On the main grounds, we sat and hung out for about an hour wating for the castle to light up at dusk. It was such a fine evening and the castle was definitely beautiful all lit up.
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| Osaka-jo castle |
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| Osaka-jo lit up at night |
Our last stop was the Umeda Sky Building. 567 feet tall, the building has an observation deck on the top. We rode the glass elevator to the restaurant, after which you ride a glass-enclosed escalator up to the outdoor observation deck. Because the escalator moves from one building to the other, suspended in midair with no under support, it triggered my vertigo, but man it was cool. The observation deck was a trip as well. The ground had little colored spots which were lit up like a neon galaxy under black lights. It was quite a view - city lights as far as the eye can see. We could even make out the lit-up Osaka-jo castle.
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| Umeda Sky Building |
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| Osaka at night |
We spent a bit of time up there before we realized that we had to get going... not before some picture booth action though! We headed home soon afterwards. That's when we realized the last train to Shane's place was about to close. We ran to catch the next JR express train to Kyoto. Fortunately, it was late so we didn't miss our train but it was full of a lot of people. I got very nauseated with the train movement and being packed in like sardines. Back at Kyoto station, we ran some more to get to all the elevators. With Kim's wheelchair, we couldn't take the direct stairs. Instead, we would have to go all the way to the end of the building, take the elevator up, cross over the tracks, take the elevator down, then run all the way back to the other end of the building to catch our next train. And since we were trying to make the last train home, we ran the entire time! Lucky for us we nabbed that last train by just a few seconds! We got home close to midnight and ate some food and washed our feet before passing out.
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| So many people waiting for the train |
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